La scala di seta

So here’s another Rossini one act farsa from Schwetzingen.  It’s a 1990 La scala di seta in, inevitably, a production by Michal Hampe.  It’s predictably pretty to look at and well constructed dramaturgically.  The Paris background is a nice touch.  There’s some fine singing and energetic fooling from Alessandro Corbelli as the servant Germano.  The principal quartet of lovers; Luciana Serra, David Kuebler, Jane Bunnel and Alberto Rinaldi backed up by David Griffith as the girls’ guardian are stylish and toss off the various quick fire ensembles with aplomb.  Gianluigi Gelmetti and the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart round things out with an equally accomplished reading.  So there it is, straightforward Rossini in a typical Hampe production pulled of nicely in Scwetzingen’s elegant rococo theatre.

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Classic Lulu

I’ve been taking another look at the Glyndebourne production of Berg’s Lulu that I first reviewed in April 2011.  I think a reappraisal is in order.  It’s a 1996 production directed by Graham Vick with Andrew Davis conducting and Christine Schäfer in the title role.  When it first appeared it got rave reviews with Gramophone awards and the like.

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Il signor Bruschino

There are some seriously obscure Rossini operas and Il signor Bruschino is one of them.  It’s scarcely an opera at all really.  It’s a one act farsa running about an hour and a quarter.  By the time he wrote this one at age twenty Rossini has already had several hits in the genre and knew how to pull out a crowd pleaser but oddly Il signor Bruschini was a colossal flop.  The plot was too convoluted and the music too advanced for the tastes of the farsistas.  If one wanted to think about the plot one went to a proper opera house like La fenice rather than the fairly obscure Venetian theatre where the work premiered.  It even offended the critics by, horror of horrors, asking the second violins to tap on their music stands with their bows during certain passages of the sinfonia.

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Dusty Capriccio

The 1993 San Francisco Opera production of Strauss’ Capriccio is about as literal a take on the work as one could imagine.  Stephen Lawless’ production sticks to the stage directions as laid down with an almost fetishistic fidelity.  This is backed up by highly decorated costumes and sets firmly placed in a slightly over elaborated 1775.  The traditionalists dream?  I suppose so if one thinks that Strauss and Krauss meant the work to be taken literally.  I don’t.  This is an opera about an opera about opera.  It begs to be deconstructed and the time and circumstances of its composition tend to reinforce the idea that all is not as it seems.  To take it at face value is actually a bit absurd but that’s what happens here and the result is rather dull and unsatisfying. Continue reading